The Age of Embers {Book 3): The Age of Reprisal

by Schow, Ryan

  “What’s the deal?” Alphonse asked.

  “We’re basically canvasing the surrounding neighborhood to get a feel for the people,” Jill said, “for what homes are empty, for any potential threats…”

  “I get it.”

  “I know, but I need to show you where we’ve been. No reason wasting gas because we didn’t plan properly.”

  “And don’t go near Old Man Danes,” Cole added. He and Marvin were coming up to the house for water, but stopped to get a look at the new tanks.

  Marvin added, “The old coot’s shot two people trying to rob the neighbor’s house in the last two days.”

  “How do you know this?” Alphonse asked.

  “Saw the bodies,” Cole said. “Plus he started shooting at us.”

  Alphonse and Gregor exchanged looks. Then Gregor said, “What exactly is he protecting?”

  “His neighbor’s place as far as we can tell,” Marvin said. “They’ve been friends a long time from what I gather.”

  “Have you been out there?” Gregor asked Jill. She shook her head no. “Why don’t the neighbors protect themselves?”

  “Because they’re dead,” Cole said.

  “How do you know this?” Alphonse asked the kid.

  “The accident I was in, the one that nearly killed me, they were with me. Not in the car, but in the accident. It was a silver Ford Taurus. The drones came after us. The Taurus crashed along with a lot of other people. Their car caught on fire,” Cole said, a distant look in his eyes. Then they cleared and he said, “They burned to death. I heard them screaming inside.”

  “You sure it’s them?” Gregor asked. “There are lots of silver Ford Tauruses out there.”

  “I knew them,” Marvin said. “It was their car. It still had a Jill Stein for President sticker on the back bumper. Burnt to hell, most of it, but some of that sticker was still there on left side.”

  “And there’s no one else living there?” Alphonse asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Does the old guy next door know they’re dead?” Gregor asked.

  “What are you thinking?” Jill asked.

  “I’m thinking we have a working farm and a communication problem. We can take advantage of one and solve the other.”

  “Communication problem?” Marvin asked.

  Alphonse said, “The farmer doesn’t know he’s guarding a house no one is coming home to. We need to communicate that to him so he doesn’t shoot us when we either loot the place or move in.”

  “No one gets hurt,” Jill warned. “So long as you stay here, no innocents get harmed.”

  Both men frowned at her. Alphonse then looked at Gregor and said, “I’m almost offended that she said that.”

  Looking at her but talking to Alphonse, Gregor said, “Do you really blame her?”

  The Frenchman made a face, then shook his head and said, “I suppose not.”

  “So we’re agreed?” Jill asked.

  “Agreed,” they both said. Then to Alphonse, Gregor said, “Ready?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The first thing Gregor saw, besides the house and its neighboring barn, was an old tractor parked in between the two structures.

  “Those guys digging the pond out back,” Gregor said.

  “Marvin and Cole?” Alfie interrupted.

  “We could dig twice the pond in a fraction of the time with this rig. We wouldn’t even break a sweat.”

  “Which house did they say the old man was in?” Alfie asked as they parked the Dodge up the two-lane country road. A few birds were chirping and a pack of dogs led by a bone-thin Chihuahua crossed the road ahead, a few of them glancing back at Gregor and Alfie.

  “White house, blue trim, small brown barn,” Gregor said after the last dog had disappeared with its pack into the fields. Pointing it out, he said, “That’s the one right there.”

  “You check out the farm,” Alfie said, “and I’ll look in on this Danes guy.”

  “No violence,” Gregor warned.

  “If he shoots at me, I’ll shoot him back,” Alfie said.

  “No violence.”

  “I heard you the first time, Mom,” he said, quietly getting out of the truck.

  Alfie headed one direction, Gregor headed the other. Gregor kept his head low as he trotted down the driveway while Alfie did the same but in the direction of Old Man Danes’ house. Except Alfie didn’t go down the driveway. It was too exposed. Instead, he jogged to a thicket of trees and brush and disappeared behind them, perhaps even into them. Presumably he was making his way to the back of the house where he’d hunker down and wait for Gregor’s signal.

  Gregor approached the seemingly vacant house, cautious in case Danes rushed outside with his rifle barking. He approached a stretch of open land between the houses, did a quick sweep then darted for the John Deere tractor sitting beside the barn, which was not that far away from the house.

  He ducked behind the tractor, popped his head up, saw the neighbor’s screen door open. He expected to be shouted at, but Old Man Danes looked like he had a glass of tea in his hand. He moseyed over to the deck’s porch swing facing the side yard, then sat down and took a long sip of his drink.

  Reigning in his senses, Gregor listened to the clucking of a few nearby hens. He sniffed the air and groaned. The stink of a chicken coop was like nothing he’d ever smelled before. They were worse in LA. He turned and saw the chicken wire contraption, along with about six dead hens and a few other chickens looking worse for the wear.

  He couldn’t worry about that right then.

  He was waiting for Alfie.

  A few minutes later, Alfie appeared alongside the house. He’d sidled up to the clapboard structure, staying close to the outer wall as he approached the edge of the porch. The Frenchman dropped low, below the height of the deck, then looked up where Danes was sitting. He was gently rocking on the porch swing, his back to Alfie, completely unaware of the threat.

  Alfie looked over at him, made the sign that said he had eyes on Gregor. Gregor gave him the signal to hold, got the affirmative nod from Alfie, then moved past a chicken coop and to the back of the house.

  There was a dog on a leash in back, a German Shepherd that looked too weary to even stand. Flies were buzzing around him. Gregor stopped in his tracks. Everything sort of fell in the rear view mirror at the sight of this poor beast.

  “Hey there, big fella,” he said, realizing the dog wasn’t abandoned on purpose. He’d been left there never-the-less. This was another sad symptom of the apocalypse. Pets without owners. No food, no water, no one to care for you, let alone take you off your leash.

  The dog growled low in its throat, but there was nothing behind it.

  “It’s okay,” he said, lightly, his tone reassuring. “You don’t look so good.”

  The dog’s ears perked up, and he lifted his eyes. The expenditure of energy was short lived. The German Shepherd slumped forward, seeming to fall even deeper into despair. Even his ears returned to normal and his eyes dropped back to the two paws stretched out before him.

  The full sized dog had one of those retractable tethers attached to the back of his collar, allowing him to roam. The problem was he was out of food and water and he couldn’t chew the leash off. Even worse, the leash was fixed up high to a rung that looked pounded into the side of the house.

  By the look of it, the dog tried to get on its hind legs and gnaw it off. Had the old crank next door not come to check on the dog? Then again, when he’d come out on the porch with his tea, Danes seemed to walk with a limp, like he had a bum leg. Maybe he was stiff from sitting for too long. Or perhaps he was injured, or even handicapped.

  Regardless, there were deep grooves in the wall around the rung, and some bloody smears and splotching encircling it. Gregor looked back down at the dog and said, “I’m going to get you some water. Then I’m going to get you off this leash.”

  He knelt down, put out his hand. The dog didn’t even sniff it. Gregor hurt inside for t
he state of this animal. Scratching behind the ears did nothing to startle him, and that’s how he knew he wouldn’t get bitten.

  He checked the door. It was locked.

  He moved around the house, checking both doors and windows. He found a bedroom window not all the way latched shut. He pulled off the screen, pried the window open, then crawled inside unsure of what, or who—if anyone—he might find.

  What he did find, however, was a house that was fully intact. It had food stores, including dehydrated fruit and meat, canned nectarines, canned peaches and lots of non-perishable food items in a very large pantry.

  It wouldn’t last long with the size of Jill’s group, but it was a start. Looking around, the house was as large as it was clean and organized. The previous owners had three grown kids and pictures of the dog from the time he was just a pup. His name was Ragnar and it looked like he was loved.

  “Interesting,” Gregor heard himself say.

  In the kitchen he found a food bowl, some kibble and several thirty-six packs of bottled water. He peeled off a couple of bottles, grabbed the kibble and the food dish and headed out back where Ragnar awaited his return.

  Gregor filled the bowl with food and a water dish with water, pushed them both in front of the dog and waited. Ragnar’s eyes slid back and forth from bowl to water dish, his body wasting no effort on the task. Gregor knelt down beside him, scratched lightly behind his ears and said, “It’s okay, Ragnar. This is for you. You just pick what you want, but do it quickly. I have to go.”

  The dog’s eyes looked up at him.

  He responded to his name.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I just need to look in on a friend. Now go ahead and eat, or drink.” He tapped the water dish, scooted it under Ragnar’s mouth, waited until his tongue came out. It did.

  Gregor smiled. “Good dog.”

  He watched as the German Shepherd shifted, then fought to get to his feet. The struggle was painful to watch, but he needed to get up on his own. When he did, Ragnar stood on wobbly legs, then shook himself, looked down at the two bowls and went for the water.

  Gregor petted him one more time, then said, “I’ll be back.”

  He took the long way around the property, staying out of Danes’ peripheral view. He joining Alfie a few minutes later. Still unaware that he had company, the old man was whistling a tune. Drinking his tea. Gregor gave his partner a nod. Alfie crept toward the deck where Danes’ was lounging, quietly reached through the wooden balusters and lifted the rifle. Carefully, he slid it back through the railing. When he had it, he gave the nod and Gregor walked around the deck and out into the open.

  “Afternoon,” he said.

  Old Man Danes startled, then reached down for the weapon that wasn’t there. By that time, Alfie moved into view and said, “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “We just don’t want you hurting us either,” Gregor added.

  Danes got to his feet (somewhat spry for his age and his obvious physical disability) and headed for the front door. Gregor didn’t let him reach it. He took a weak swing, but Gregor ducked under the shot, slid behind him and choked Danes out.

  Slowly, he eased the unconscious man down to the decking. Gregor then propped him up against the side of the house while Alfie stepped up onto the porch.

  “I say we ransack this place,” Alfie said, both serious and humorless, “and if there’s anything valuable, we get rid of him and say he fell into a well or whatever.”

  “Jill said no violence.”

  “You in love, partner? Because I see the way you look at her.”

  “We’re not the kind of people who would do something like this,” Gregor said, his tone sour, his heart filled with disappointment. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You ain’t the boss anymore.”

  Leveling his partner with a long look, he shook his head, then stepped inside the house and took a peek around. Eventually he found a clean wash cloth and a medium length bungee chord.

  When he went back outside, Danes had come around and was glaring at Alfie. Alfie was standing just out of reach and looking out into the fields.

  “You gonna kill me?” Danes said. He appeared to be in his early seventies, good skin, white hair, not much meat on his bones.

  “No,” Gregor replied. “I didn’t even want to do that. Choke you out. You swung on me, though, so really you left me no choice.”

  “So why you here?” he groused.

  “To tell you that your neighbors are dead and you shooting at everyone who comes near their home is counterproductive.”

  “To what?” he spat.

  “To their survival,” Alfie said, roasting the old man with his eyes.

  “What do you think is going on here?” Gregor asked, kneeling before him. “All this death and destruction, the loss of power, the looters? What do you think this is all about?”

  “The power will come back on.”

  “No it won’t,” Alfie said, calmer, but his temper still short. “The blown transformers, nothing working, not small electronics, not cars…the power will never come back on, my friend.”

  “So you’re just looters then?” he said, looking back and forth between the two of them.

  “If society has a hiccup and I break into the Adidas store to steal sneakers, or shirts—basically a bunch of non-essentials—then I’d say yes, we’d be looters. But this is not about non-essentials. This is about survival and we are survivors, same as you.”

  “I don’t have much of value here.”

  “You have a roof, a weapon, food inside I’m sure,” Alfie said. “All that has value.”

  “So you want my house then?” he said, getting riled again.

  Gregor stood up, joined Alfie at the porch railing, then said, “We want the house next door and we don’t want you to shoot us while we take what we can of value.”

  “If I can, I will stop you,” he said.

  Alfie turned around, walked to him, knelt down right in his face, close enough to count every last pore on Danes’ face. “You can’t stop us.”

  “That’s someone’s house,” he argued. “Not yours.”

  “Your neighbor’s are in a ditch a mile or so up the road. They burned to death in their silver Ford Taurus.”

  “The hell they did!”

  “Jill Stein for President,” Gregor said, then watched the reaction in Danes’ eyes. His response was clear. He’d just provided Danes with a confirmation. “We don’t want to hurt you, to take from you, or to have even put you in this position. But there are two dead people out there drawing flies, two people you shot. You can understand why we took this approach, yes?”

  The old man’s jaw flicked. He flat out refused to look at them.

  “Did I hurt you when I subdued you?” Gregor asked. Danes refused him his eyes and an answer. “We’re LAPD officers. Our job is to protect and serve.”

  Now he looked up.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, honest to God,” Alfie said, finally starting to relax.

  “Crooked or clean?”

  “I’m crooked, he’s clean,” Alfie said, not a glint of humor in his eye. “But nowadays, like he said, there is no right or wrong. There’s only surviving. If you want to survive, you will survive us, but we’re going to lock you in a closet, blindfold and tie you up, and then we’ll come back when we’re done.”

  “Just do it,” he said, jowls shaking.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Gregor said. “Unless you want to help. There are things in the house you might be able to use.”

  “I’m not doing this. You want to be dirty cops and take someone else’s things, you go ahead.”

  “Their dog was practically dead,” Gregor said. “For an upstanding neighbor like yourself, a loyal old coot who’s willing to kill strangers to protect something that isn’t yours, you sure screwed up not checking on Ragnar.”

  “I have gout in my foot,” he said. “Can’t walk so well.”

  Greg
or thought of something. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to take a closer look around. See what’s what inside.”

  “Don’t take my stuff!” he shouted.

  Alfie said, “Relax man, we don’t want your things.”

  Gregor went in the house, found a few boxes of ammo, put them in a plastic bag he found in the kitchen. He didn’t find any other weapons. In the garage, he found a newer car that wouldn’t start, a great assortment of gardening tools, ten tons of miscellaneous junk, and a worn length of rope. That was what he needed.

  Gregor returned to the porch and said, “Let’s get him on the porch swing.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Just leave me here.”

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Alfie said. Gregor hated the look in Danes’ face. He wondered if he’d ever live long enough to know that kind of vulnerability.

  He hoped not.

  “I’ll take the hard way,” he said, defiant.

  Gregor crossed the porch, grabbed the rifle, chambered a round and returned to where Danes was sitting. He put the barrel to his head and said, “Give me a three count Alfie.”

  “Three, two—”

  “Alright, alright you assholes,” he groused.

  Gregor withdrew the rifle, reached down and offered him a hand. Danes shoved it aside and fought his way to his feet. He walked to the porch swing on his own, his limp more pronounced than before. When he sat down, Gregor placed the washcloth over his face and bungee-chorded it in place. Alfie tied him to the swing. He was an Eagle Scout and money with knots.

  “That’s too tight,” Danes mumbled through the cloth.

  “Of course it is,” Alfie said.

  “When we’re done,” Gregor told him, “I promise to return all of your property to you. And I promise you will remain unharmed.”

  “You said that already,” he said, his words muffled.

  Over the next hour or so they went through the neighbor’s house, gathering all the food, water and supplies they could. They found plenty of tools they could use back at the compound, and there were a dozen fruit trees out back that were teeming with fruit. If they could get Danes to calm down, if they refused him his rifle until they were on better terms, it might actually make sense to move in there.